Welcome to Paths Not Taken, the thirteenth Operation Quickline story. When a sting operation is set up on the resort owned by Lisa Wycherly’s father, she and Sid Hackbirn find themselves revisiting their high school jobs. And hoping their covers don’t get blown. You can read the first chapter here.
I was in such a good mood that Friday night, I almost hated to go to bed. Of course, me being in a good mood meant that Sid was in a good mood, which probably led to some complaints and raucous joking about the noise levels in the staff lodge, but that night I did not care.
Alas, Saturday morning arrived all too soon. I was barely dressed and hadn’t even had time to get breakfast when the walkie-talkie started squawking. Lourdes and Mira were squabbling again over room assignments, and I had to go sort them out. Nor did things let up.
I handled the next two issues in the break room while munching on bacon, hash browns, and scrambled eggs from the restaurant. We found three lost toys and the shredded remains of someone’s blankie. Irene nearly pounded Esther for getting in the way and asking questions during checkouts that morning.
“Is it always this crazy?” Esther asked me as I double-checked something in the reservations book in the front office.
“On Saturdays? Yes,” I said, flipping pages on the printout and praying we didn’t have another double-booking problem.
“Can’t you assign check-in and check-out times?”
“No.” I tried not to glare at her. “People want to leave when they want to leave and arrive when they want to arrive. Plus, flights get delayed and canceled. Cars break down or lunch stops take longer than planned. We’ve got three kids in Cabin Five who spent the night throwing up and they want a late check-out so the kids can get some rest before heading home.” I shuddered, glad that I didn’t have to clean that cabin.
“Oh. Hm.” Esther was thinking and started to open her mouth.
“Esther, can you do me a favor, please?” I cut in before she could ask. “Can you just take notes today and ask your questions later? I don’t need you practicing your hand-to-hand to keep Irene from strangling you.”
“Okay.”
“Thank you, Jesus!” I’d found what I wanted on the printout and sighed in relief. There wasn’t a double-booking after all.
The walkie-talkie squawked again, and I was off and running, pausing just long enough to let Irene know we were okay. Then I had to go assess the damage in Cabin Eleven, thanks to the executive retreat. I brought Motley with me for that one. Sure enough, they hadn’t been there to build better connections on the executive team. Or, rather, their idea of building better connections involved doing lines of coke, drinking to excess, and probably wife-swapping. Motley found traces of white powder all over the cabin. Empty liquor bottles abounded. The place reeked of marijuana and stale booze, and I found several sex toys in the common area of the cabin. I called Irene to let her know that we’d be charging a cleaning fee and to hold the cabin as long as she could.
Later that afternoon, as I was rushing through the lobby of the main lodge, I saw something that put my heart in my throat.
A small party of an older couple and three young children stood at the front desk, checking in. I recognized the couple. Clint and Dierdre Foster were members of the Travel Club. He was average size, with a bald spot and neatly trimmed brown hair. She was equally nondescript. He was the CIA liaison, specializing in covert operations in South America. She was a cover member. I wasn’t sure who the kids were but knew that the Fosters had three grandchildren.
I ran to the kitchen.
“Clint and Dierdre Foster are checking in,” I gasped at Sid.
Sid cursed. “What the hell are they doing here?”
“I have no idea and no time to call Dale about it.”
“I’ll call Dale.” Sid looked around the kitchen. Things seemed relatively quiet since it was the end of an almost non-existent lunch rush. “Can you talk to Hattie?”
I nodded, then flew up the service stairs to the third floor.
“What’s the matter?” Hattie asked as she admitted me to her room.
I explained about Clint and Dierdre being there.
“Why are they here?” Hattie began pacing as well.
“I have no idea!” I snapped. “Sid’s calling Dale. Or he’s going to try to. I don’t even know if any of them know we’re here, and I’ve gotta find some way to warn the Fosters about the Delgados and my dad and keep the Delgados away from them.”
“A good thing, but inconvenient, at best.” Hattie shook her head. “Do you know which room the Fosters are in?”
“Not yet.”
“Why don’t I go downstairs and see if I can talk to them?”
“Just don’t let Daddy see you do it. He’s been asking too many questions as it is, and he knows about our connection. If he sees you talking to Clint, he’ll figure out about him as well.”
“It is a visible way of knowing each other.” Hattie patted my shoulder. “We’ll find a way around it. In the meantime, I’ll go talk to Clint. I’ll page you when we need to talk.”
My walkie-talkie squawked again, and I left Hattie as I answered the call. It was some minor matter, but I was needed to deal with it.
After that, I headed back to the kitchen to update Sid. He had not been able to reach Dale, which did not surprise me. That’s when Hattie paged both of us.
Sid shook his head. “You’ll have to take it without me. Lee’s late for work and we’re already booked solid for dinner, so I’ve got to stay until he shows.”
I hurried out and found Hattie in Room 209. Clint paced the larger space with the two beds. Dierdre had taken the kids to the playground, and every time Clint wandered past the window overlooking the back of the lodge and the cabins, he looked outside and half-smiled.
“Crap. What are you doing here?” Clint growled.
Hattie rolled her eyes before I could bite his head off. “Honestly, Clint. Her name? This is her father’s resort?”
“That doesn’t mean she’d be here.” He glared at me. “Is your husband on site too?”
“Yes. We’re both working here for the summer.”
“And we’ve got the Delgados nosing their way into this.” Clint had apparently been told that they were here. He looked out at the playground, half-smiled, then snorted. “Whose bright idea was all of this?”
“Dale O’Connor’s,” Hattie said. “He says he knows what he’s doing.”
“We don’t need the backup,” Clint snarled. “We’ve got it under control.”
“Are you sure?” asked Hattie.
Clint snorted. “That we’re all here together, along with the Delgados. Well, why not? We’re friends.”
“We haven’t told anyone that we know the Delgados, and we’d better not.” I sighed. “I suppose it will be okay if we know you and Dierdre. The hard part is that Daddy is really good at spotting fibs, and he can read me like a picture book.”
“You’ll be fine, Lisa,” Hattie said.
Clint looked at my shirt and my walkie-talkie. “So, you’re working here?”
“Yes. Assistant manager and head of housekeeping,” I said. “Why?”
“Perfect. You can get intel to the Delgados and Hattie. You’ll be our hub.”
“Of course.” I pressed my lips together and did not tell him that I was already the hub and that Sid and I were supposedly running the operation.
“Why don’t you two clear out?” Clint said. “We’ll go to dinner tonight. You got that restaurant here, right?”
“Not tonight, I won’t,” I said. “I’ve been eating with the rest of my family and the last place we’ll want to be is that restaurant. We’ll connect later.”
“Same here,” said Hattie. “In fact, I’ve already got plans to have dinner with Marge Benson tonight before she leaves, and we’re going to someplace in town.”
Clint shrugged and Hattie and I left, heading for the elevator.
I sighed. “We do not need this.”
“We most certainly do not.” She pressed the call button, then looked at me. “Any hope of finding those plans?”
“The only thing I can think of is that the target is keeping them on him. I’ve searched everywhere that I can think of. Did Sid tell you about the background checks we’re doing?”
“It’s as good an idea as any.” Hattie blinked. “Of all the times.”
“I know.”
It was getting near dinner time and the worst of the check-in rush was over. So I went to the kitchen to see where Sid was.
He was working the wait station.
“What’s going on?”
“I had to send Whitney home,” Sid said. “He seemed sober enough, but he reeked of pot. We can’t have that.”
“No, we can’t.”
“I told him he can come back if he can pass the smell test.” Sid shook his head. “It’s not looking good for him.”
“Why don’t I try talking to him on Monday?”
“That would be great. Thanks.” He sighed. “Apart from Whitney, this place is running pretty good. I may even take off early. Janine is up to it.”
“Okay. We’ll wait to have dinner until you know what you’re doing.”
Fortunately, Sid took off early enough to get dinner with the rest of our family at the Mexican food place. They were kind enough to bring a churro with a candle in it for Janey’s birthday that day. Sid and I went back to the apartment early. We were going to have to be up extra early to get to the airport. The five of us were flying down to Burbank to spend the day with the rest of Janey’s family to celebrate her birthday.
Sid’s Voice –
I was having a good time that summer. I like restaurant work and always have. Well, except for the low wages. I never liked that, but I had always made it up in tips when I waited tables.
Being a consultant, that was fun for me. It was a challenge, especially physically. I’d forgotten how exhausting it can be to be on your feet all day, and I make a point of keeping myself up.
However, I had two flies in my personal ointment that summer. The first was Nick, who was being a pain in the ass in general. But we were still talking for the most part, and while he wasn’t happy with me that summer, he didn’t hate me, either. So I had to figure most of it was typical adolescent behavior. I’d certainly been nastier to my aunt when I was growing up.
But then there was Lisa. She’d had a difficult time that first year we were married, although it wasn’t our relationship. It was that she’d never wanted to be married, never wanted to be a parent. It’s a testament to how much she loves Nick and me that she became the last thing she wanted – a wife and mother.
That’s why I had encouraged her to go back to her original plan of becoming a college professor. I’d seen her teach. We’d had that case in Wisconsin, where she’d gone undercover at a small arts college, and she’d gone above and beyond, really working to teach her students basic writing skills, rather than sliding through. Better yet, she enjoyed it.
Her first semester as a doctoral candidate did not go well. As she’s already noted, she’d been bored out of her mind and couldn’t figure out why. She loves Shakespeare, quotes the Bard even more often than she quotes the Bible, and doesn’t mind reading scholarly journals on the topic.
Then came the class with Dr. Barber. It was bad enough that he was a sexist prick. Most of her classmates were, too, and it really didn’t help when Lisa’s essay from the previous semester on keeping Shakespeare relevant by re-thinking the female roles got published by one of the more distinguished journals in her field.
By the time that late July rolled around, Lisa was fed up to her back teeth with the resort work, and knowing her, was probably just as worried about disappointing her father, even if she wasn’t admitting that to herself. I felt almost as frustrated as she did with the way the case was breaking. But she wasn’t happy, and that really bothered me.
The Saturday of Janey’s birthday had been a relatively shitty day, too. I’d covered the morning and lunch rush for Amelia Petrossian, the daytime manager. She’d had a kid get sick. Then it had been more nuts than usual at lunch, with several guests deciding to not only eat there, but one table that was not satisfied with anything.
Then Lisa told me about the Fosters, which was bad enough. After Lisa left to talk with Hattie and Clint, Lee Whitney showed, and I damned near got a contact high off his clothes. His eyes were clear, but there was no way he could work smelling like he did.
I had talked to Daddy about Lee, and Daddy wanted me to give him every chance as long as Lee didn’t come to work stoned. Daddy was good at giving people in trouble a chance. It explained Lisa’s tendency to forgive others. That woman will find a way to forgive Hitler.
I did not want to work that night, but we were fully booked out on reservations and when that happened, we needed both a manager and an assistant. So, I stayed, but only for the first hour of dinner rush. Lee returned odor-free, finally, and the rest of the family was waiting for me to go to dinner.
By the time Lisa and I got back to the apartment, I was bushed. Lisa told me what Clint and Hattie had said, and I was not happy. But there wasn’t much we could do about it, no matter how fed up we were getting.
“Well, it could be a hell of a lot worse,” I told her as we cuddled after lovemaking.
“I suppose,” she sighed.
It wasn’t like her to be that pessimistic. I held her close to me and kissed the scar on her temple.
“We’re both alive. The kid’s alive. And if your dad is onto us, he’s not doing anything about it.” I nuzzled her ear. She really likes that, and I really like doing it. “We’ve got a long day tomorrow, too. Why don’t we try to get some sleep?”
It wasn’t even eleven at that point. I know because there was a soft beeping sound and a red light blinked next to the clock radio on the bedside table.
“Shit.” I squinted at the clock and got out of bed.
“Odds?” Lisa asked, her voice thick with sleep.
“Probably one of the kids tripping it. I’ll check.”
“Shorts.”
I sighed. “Right.”
I grabbed the pair of running shorts on the dresser and quickly got them on.
There was a distinct problem we were having with securing Dusty’s room in the staff lodge. Dusty’s pager was set so that it didn’t trip the wires on his room, and we’d set up a pager for Desmond the same way. However, the summer help, made up of college kids, was very prone to wandering in and out of each other’s rooms at all hours of the night, sometimes for sex, sometimes just to talk. Dusty was not the most sociable kid, but he’d made a couple friends, and Donna Mars had a serious crush on him. So, it was not unusual for one of the other kids to go into Dusty’s room to see if he was there.
The problem was that wandering in and out of the room triggered alarms. Lisa and I had realized the first night someone had visited Dusty in the wee hours of the morning that showing up with guns aimed and no clothes (we sleep in the raw) was not the best way to deal with it. On the other hand, we couldn’t assume that because an alarm had been triggered that it was just one of the kids doing what they do.
As I left the bedroom, Lisa pulled a small automatic out of her bedside table and grabbed her terry robe from the hook on the closet door.
I slid out of the apartment. I knew Lisa was behind me, but her job was to hang back in case it was one of the kids. The big common area was empty. I looked down the hall toward the rooms on the other side of the common area. The hall was completely dark, and I went on alert. If it had been one of the usual wanderings, I would have either seen the kid who’d triggered the alarm or a light under Dusty’s door.
I listened first at the door. There was definitely someone on the other side. I eased the door open and looked. A form about the same height as me, wearing black and an all-over ski mask, looked up from the trunk at the end of Dusty’s bed.
A second later, he sprang. I blocked a couple punches, but the guy was good, and I was barefoot. He got in a quick kick that grazed my nuts. There are few things that hurt like that does, and I sank to my knees. The dark form grabbed my neck and tried to get behind me. I knew the move and as soon as he’d thrown his arm around my neck to attempt to break it. I popped my knuckles into his biceps. He cursed softly, but didn’t entirely let go.
Lisa screamed and flipped on the lights. A second later, the dark form dropped me and knocked Lisa over as he scrambled away. Lisa and I hurried to our feet, but the intruder had disappeared through the front door of the staff lodge, which hung open. Lisa, having put on some flip-flops, ran ahead, but came back shaking her head.
“He’s gone,” she said. She looked at me. “You okay?”
“Singing soprano.”
“Oh, no!”
“It was only a light graze, but it did enough.”
Lisa looked out the front. “It’s funny, Sid. When I flipped on the lights, I saw him look down and that’s when he dropped you.”
“As in, I wasn’t his target.”
We didn’t get any time to debate the issue, though. Dusty and Desmond walked into the lodge from the front.
“What you guys doing up?” Dusty asked us.
“We thought we heard something funny,” I said. “Where were you guys?”
“We went to the movies,” Desmond said as Dusty hurried off to his room. Desmond lowered his voice. “What happened?”
“Intruder,” Lisa said. “Did you see anything outside?”
“No.” Desmond frowned.
“Someone’s been going through my stuff!” Dusty yelped.
Lisa went to talk to him. I held Desmond back.
“Have you found anything?” I asked.
He shook his head. “He’s not even carrying anything on him. I’ve checked his clothes when he was wearing his skivvies and watched him get ready for the shower. So, unless those plans were small enough to swallow, he hasn’t got them.”
“Shit.”
Still, it was Lisa who found the ray of hope.
“The intruder was looking for something,” she told me a bit later as we returned to bed. “And it sounds terrible, but you and Dusty are about the same height. In the dark, the intruder might have mistaken you.”
“Which means he was trying to kill Dusty.”
“And he must have been looking for the plans, which also means that he doesn’t have them.”
Thank you for reading. For more information about the Operation Quickline series, click here.
Please check out the Fiction page for the latest on all my novels. Or look me up at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Vroman’s, in Pasadena, California.